Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King

by Blackmore, Keith C.

  Then he heard the commotion behind him.

  Collie glanced back. She then turned around completely and crouched to a knee. She brought up her rifle. The screaming intensified, prompting Gus to look behind him.

  That was his undoing.

  Practically exhausted, he stepped onto a rock which slid out from underfoot in a startling, split-second yank-and-tip sensation. Gus went lopsided, arms splayed as he splashed down on his back. Pressure squeezed his chest as a galaxy of bubbles exploded about his face. He twisted, steeping himself even deeper. His fingers grazed the edge of the rock mantel—the very one he walked upon only a second earlier.

  Then nothing.

  And that was the most frightening part of being dunked—that slow-motion sense of sinking. He released a watery garp! and pawed for land that was no longer there, while sheets of angelic light shimmered around him. The mantel’s edge receded into the gloom the deeper he sank.

  Instinct took over. Gus fluttered his arms and kicked his feet. He breast-stroked, zeroing in upon the imposing slab that was the mantel. He swam toward that murky wall, his clothing as clingy and troublesome as a strait jacket. His panic spiked. His brain demanded air but his mouth and lungs refused. He then touched rock and scrabbled for a handhold. Then toeholds. He grabbed the painted rocks, and they came free of the mantel’s edge with an underwater rattle and quickly sank. Gus sank with them for six inches before he was able to worm his way back up. He latched onto the submerged ledge, on the verge of sucking down water, his lungs desperate for anything. He kicked, pressing his chest to the mantel, slapping an arm across the path. Gus lifted his face towards the shimmering surface, inches away. He clawed for a cranny, a crack, anything to hoist himself up, but found nothing. He grunted in panicked frustration, releasing a jet of bubbles before his eyes. Air! Bright, sparkling air was right above him, right there, but he couldn’t get any closer. His water-logged boots pumped dreamily against the lower rock, unable to get a toehold. The goddamn mantel was as smooth as a baby’s ass. With his remaining strength, he lifted himself in a last-ditch effort and rose almost enough to kiss the surface.

  Before sinking back.

  Arp! Gus screamed, and his lungs truly started shrieking, telling him to quit fucking around, to get his ass up on that shelf before they started taking on water in great convulsive gulps. Except Gus couldn’t get his ass any higher. He’d blown through whatever gas he had in the tank. His brain joined the swelling mutiny of his lungs, and his mouth was a second away from opening the hatches.

  The light overhead crystalized, shattering into sparkles.

  Then darkened.

  An arm harpooned the water and a hand fastened onto his shoulder. Collie pulled him up and Gus broke the surface with an uncontrollable gasp and sputter.

  “I got you,” she said, still holding onto her assault rifle. “I got you.”

  Gus barked a short cough and stabilized himself. His ears roared and his face dripped. His vision was a wet smear.

  Collie crouched beside him, facing the campers’ island.

  Mindless.

  The zombies charged into the lake, splashing forward like mad children. Some went to their chests and quickly sank out of sight. Some wiped out in spectacular fashion, going tits-over-ass before splashing down. A few managed to locate the secret walkway, and they stayed upon it for only a few strides before the path took an irregular turn, whereupon the mindless immediately disappeared underwater. A few hands clawed at the air, just above the surface, before sinking out of sight.

  “You good?” Collie asked.

  “Yeah,” Gus sputtered, and he got to his feet. “Think my balls are waterlogged.”

  She pulled him away. They staggered along, staying inside the white lines, sloshing toward the shore. The path continued to zig and zag, and those turns saved them, as the mindless—true to their new name—paid no heed to the markers and disappeared into unknown depths. A frenzied splashing cut the air, along with the water choked cries of the zombies as they sank in deep water.

  “Like… a pissed-off marine world… back there,” Gus gasped.

  “Save your breath,” Collie said.

  Davis waited for them on the shore, and when Gus released Collie and stood on his own, he realized how quiet it had become. Quiet enough for him to turn around and see what was transpiring on the water.

  A light wind rustled the surface, but of the mindless, there was no sight.

  The lake had sucked them down. And kept them there.

  20

  “This way,” Davis said. He disappeared into the forest, leading them along a narrow path cloaked in a comfortable autumn shadow.

  Clothes dribbling and boots squishing, Gus squeezed his beard free of water and followed. Wet and wretched and all but depleted of strength, it took everything to put one foot before the other. Every step was a wet cement spatter that threatened to pull him down. The shivers grabbed him then, adding to his misery. He staggered along, grabbing at limbs that might support him, hoping to God he didn’t stumble. If he did, he’d fall flat on his soggy-ass and that would be that. There’d be no getting back up. So he wobbled and swayed through that dense patch of woodland, following a rough trail marked by axe and boot prints.

  “You okay?” Collie asked.

  “Huh?”

  “I said you okay?”

  Gus nodded.

  “‘Cause you look like shit.”

  “I’m fine,” he muttered with a wet scowl. He pointed back toward the lake. “They could be… walking along the bottom. Right now.”

  “The MBs?” Collie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll be long gone before they get to the surface. That right, Davis?”

  “That’s right.”

  At that exact moment, Gus’s body ceased to work below the waist. He lurched to a stop and grabbed his knees, unable to go any further. “Oh Jesus. I gotta—gotta stop. Right here. I’m about to drop.”

  Collie let him be. Wet and winded but otherwise fine, she placed her back against a tree and gradually sank to a knee, her rifle lowered. In the shade, her sunglasses gleamed, speckled with water droplets.

  Gus gasped, spat, and dripped where he stood. With a pained groan, he slowly collapsed on his ass, his knees crackling as he did so.

  “Jesus,” Collie grimaced. “Does that hurt?”

  Red-eyed and saturated, he shook his head.

  “Sounds awful.”

  He smiled weakly, oh-so-grateful for the few seconds of rest. He realized he’d planted his backside in a cozy bed of wildflowers. His hands were in what might’ve been tea leaves. He studied the vegetation briefly, wary of poison ivy and pissed-off snakes. Either one would be a fishhook in his ball sack at this point in the game. Seeing neither, however, he relaxed and laid back on his elbows, lowering himself like a broken robot.

  “Just gimme a minute,” he panted. “Just a minute. S’all I need.”

  “Don’t talk,” Collie told him. “Davis?”

  Halfway up the hill, the islander’s head perked up. “Yeah?”

  “Go catch up with your people. Tell them we’re two minutes behind. And if I fire a long burst, don’t wait for us. Got it?”

  He hesitated. “Got it. We have trucks three hills over. Three klicks from here.”

  “Trucks?” Collie asked.

  “Three klicks?” a horrified Gus blurted.

  “Yes,” Davis answered. “And yes.”

  “Gassed up?” she asked.

  “Yes, but not much of it.”

  “Three klicks?” Gus repeated, positively aghast and staring at his soaking boots. “Fuck me gently. Couldn’t you park them closer?”

  “The closest road is three kilometers out. We’re in deep woods here.”

  “Oh dear Jesus,” Gus moaned, his head rolling.

  “Carry on,” Collie said to Davis. “We’ll be there.”

  Davis got up, brushed himself off, and started up the hill. When the islander disappeared into t
he forest, Gus considered the trail behind them, twisted and lost in the tangles. Somewhere beyond that foliage, there were waters lapping at a rocky shoreline. Any second, he expected one of those dead things to start wailing, announcing to the world that it had reached the other side.

  Collie shifted her rifle, the movement breaking his thoughts.

  “He’s in better shape than me,” Gus said in an exhausted voice.

  “The hell you talking about?” she asked. “You realize how far you’ve come? You just passed basic training, buddy. You’re a goddamn Spartan is what you are. A human missile.”

  Gus smirked, knowing better. Still, a part of him enjoyed that.

  They stopped talking then, and in that meaningful lapse, they could hear Davis’s footfalls over the hill.

  “Where’d they get them, Collie?” Gus asked.

  “The meatbags?”

  “Yeah.”

  The operator offered a tight smile. “Who knows? Thing is, they got them. And… were able to stash them away somewhere. Kept them outta the fucking daylight. Or dipped them in vats of moisturizer. I don’t know.”

  “They were runners.”

  “They were.”

  “Fresh as fucking daisies.”

  Collie nodded they were that.

  “I mean…” Gus tried to make sense of it all. “Could they have… maybe… kept a head or two? Like that playpen? Remember? The one filled with only heads?”

  “Snapping, biting heads,” she added.

  “Yeah, like that? Could some sick bastard… have an undead head tucked away? Maybe saving the virus? Just to infect people? The ones they don’t like? Or have no use for. And turn them into new gimps?”

  Collie thought it over. “Possible. There are some twisted puppies out there. And people are the last valuable resource around. Only water comes close. And pizza. Only need two brain cells to figure that out. Just a few things puzzling me about all that.”

  “The piss bags?”

  “That’s one of them.”

  Gus sniffed himself. “I still stink. That’s some rancid shit. Even after the dip.”

  Collie checked herself as well. “Not as bad as before, but it’s there. This might be trouble.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said and stood. “You ready?”

  He was nowhere near ready, but he nodded all the same.

  “We gotta get to those rides,” she told him. “I’m not going to fucking walk all the way to Whitecap.”

  “We’re still going?” Gus asked in surprise.

  “More than ever.”

  “But what about Davis and Eva and company?”

  “Like it or not, they come with us. I don’t see a choice. And we gotta go right now, because shit’s getting really quiet over there and I don’t like it.”

  She was right. Gus climbed to his feet, his knees crackling once again. It was embarrassing. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Her sunglasses clear of clinging water, Collie flashed him a smile, bright and toothy. “Don’t worry about it, babe.”

  Then she was hiking up the hill.

  Gus stood there for seconds, watching her go, and remembered to start breathing again. There was something feral in her smile that startled him, and he replayed and froze the image in his mind’s eye.

  Only for a second, however, before he hoofed it after her.

  They caught up with Davis chugging over the second hill. He greeted them with an exhausted nod and pointed toward the crest. “The others. Just over the hill. I can hear them.”

  Gus couldn’t hear shit, but Collie was already moving past the islander. “Come on, then. They only roughed up your face. You had scads of juice not five minutes ago.”

  “Everything caught up to me,” Davis said.

  They heard the survivors trudging through the bush before they saw them. As they closed the gap, Rich Trinidad came into view. The gunslinger walked along as a rear guard, one hand on a nine-millimeter Beretta. His sombrero lifted as he detected the approaching three, but he didn’t acknowledge them.

  “Rich!” Davis said and waved.

  Trinidad didn’t reply.

  The other islanders came into view then, though partially hidden by the forest. They turned at the sound of Davis’s voice.

  “Anyone coming after you?” Trinidad asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “That’s going to change,” Collie said.

  “You figure?” Trinidad asked.

  “Oh yeah,” the operator said grimly. “How far to these stashed rides of yours?”

  Trinidad appeared none too happy about the question, still suspicious of the newcomers.

  “Still a ways to go,” Davis answered for him.

  The rest of the islanders were taking a break, seated along the trail. Eva was there, as well as the bespectacled Sarah. Then Gus found Cory and Bruno, with Monica close by them.

  “Get everyone marching,” Collie said, striding past them all and heading for the front of the column. “And watch our tails back there, Rich. This ain’t over.”

  Gus shivered at the words. He didn’t think it was over either.

  *

  The sight of corpses struggling upon lazy waves stopped the Vulture in his tracks. At his back was a sizeable force of the Leather, gathered along the shoreline and watching their leader. A dozen more waited upon the rocks leading to the underwater pathway. The Vulture wasn’t pleased about the escape route. He was even more displeased with Carson for withholding that crucial bit of information. The mechanic was being selective with what he knew. The Vulture found that both admirable and infuriating. Even now, as dozens of the Leather swarmed over the island, searching for fresh meat, the Vulture knew nothing would be found.

  Their quarry had fled. Across the lake.

  Water lapped at the black rocks. White markers gleamed beneath the water.

  The Vulture turned to a lesser. “Bring me Carson.”

  Several minutes later, a half-dozen of the Leather dumped the mechanic into the sand before the Vulture. If the man appeared pitiful before, he was even more wretched now. Carson had been removed from the forklift and marched along until his wrecked feet could take no more, whereupon he was dragged by the arms over crushed stone and forest floor. Dirt and dust covered him, and his blood ran freely from dozens of visible cuts. Tatters of duct tape clung to his skin, the ends curled and speckled.

  The sinister Bronze loomed over the tortured man. His hammer had been hooked upon his waist.

  “You,” the Vulture said quietly, unmoved by the mechanic’s injuries, “have lied to us again.”

  Carson whimpered and shook his head with whatever strength remained. His wet cheeks fluttered around the ball gag. One of those cheeks had been split down the middle.

  The Bronze reached for his hammer while one of the nearby Leather yanked the gag free. Carson retched and bent over, only to be rudely straightened by his captors. One of his eyes was blinking badly, as if irritated. He focused upon the Vulture.

  “You didn’t tell us about this path,” the Vulture said.

  “I forgot.”

  That unsettling mask didn’t move. “Liar,” the Vulture said softly, aiming a gun finger at the man.

  The Bronze jerked his hammer free of his belt.

  “I forgot!” Carson yelled, his chest heaving.

  “Where are they going?” the Vulture asked.

  “I don’t know,” the mechanic pleaded. He glanced fearfully at his potential executioner.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I don’t.”

  The Vulture clenched one hand into a fist.

  The Leather fell upon Carson. The man screamed and struggled as they flattened him out upon the sand. Hands gripped his feet, arms, and steadied his head. He writhed until exhausted, and then sobbed in trapped terror.

  “You have no need of your legs for your work,” the Vulture quietly pointed out. “Where are they going?”

  Carson squinted his
good eye shut. His chest was scratched and bleeding as if he’d been pulled through a sock of barbed wire. “Go fuck yourself,” he finally snapped off, tapping into an reservoir of defiance. “You bunch of goddamn parasitic cocksuckers. Go fuck yourselves. Guess what? We got a bunker over there. Poured it myself. Concrete walls a foot thick and looking down right where you come ashore on the other side. They’re waiting for you right there now, ready to blow your fucking nuts off with firebombs and booby traps.”

  The Leather didn’t react. The Bronze made no move to punish the prisoner for his outburst.

  The Vulture remained impassive.

  Carson’s good eye flicked from one captor to another.

  “That won’t work,” the Vulture said flatly.

  “You go on across and see what won’t work. The first unlucky piece of shit you send will get a bullet right between the eyes.”

  “No,” the Vulture explained softly. “You misunderstood. We’re not going to kill you. You cannot… provoke us into killing you. You cannot provoke me. We’re going to keep you alive. I’m going to keep you alive. For a very long time. We will break you. Like we’ve broken others. Then you’ll belong to the Leather. And the Dog Tongue.”

  Carson’s bruised features twisted in confused horror.

  “Now then,” the Vulture continued. “Tell us everything about this crossing, and what’s on the other side. If you forget anything, if you keep back any details, you will be disciplined. In such a way that you will never willingly deceive the Leather again. We will crush your remaining toes. Then your feet. Your ankles.”

  The masked leader tilted in a show of careful thought. “Your knees. And… your hips. You don’t need any of that to be useful to the Leather.”

  A sweating, stinking Carson paled a few shades more and visibly swallowed. His head went slack upon his shoulders.

  “After that, it becomes costly,” the Vulture went on. “And we may put aside the hammer for other, more penetrating, tools.”

  At that, the Bronze flashed a scalpel. He brought the surgical tool in close to the prisoner’s nose and held it there.